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There are some odd things about Nate’s new apartment. Of course, he has other things on his mind. He hates his job. He has no money in the bank. No girlfriend. No plans for the future. So while his new home isn’t perfect, it’s livable. The rent is low, the property managers are friendly, and the odd little mysteries don’t nag at him too much. At least, not until he meets Mandy, his neighbor across the hall, and notices something unusual about her apartment. And Xela’s apartment. And Tim’s. And Veek’s.

Neverwhere

Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but shrewish fiancée. Then one night he stumbles upon a girl lying on the sidewalk, bleeding. He stops to help her, and his life is changed forever. Soon he finds himself living in a London most people would never have dreamed of: a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels. It is a world that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations.

Lock In (Narrated by Wil Wheaton)

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.

The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

Middlesex

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It

Warning: You may have a huge, invisible spider living in your skull. This is not a metaphor. You will dismiss this as ridiculous fearmongering. Dismissing things as ridiculous fearmongering is, in fact, the first symptom of parasitic spider infection - the creature secretes a chemical into the brain to stimulate skepticism, in order to prevent you from seeking a cure. That’s just as well, since the “cure” involves learning what a chain saw tastes like. You can’t feel the spider, because it controls your nerve endings.

Cujo

Cujo is a 200-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave inhabited by sick bats. What happens to Cujo, how he becomes a horrifying vortex inescapably drawing in all the people around him, makes for one of the most heart-stopping novels Stephen King has ever written.

Chiefs

In 1919, Delano, Georgia, appoints its first chief of police. Honest and hardworking, the new chief is puzzled when young men start to disappear. But his investigation is ended by the fatal blast from a shotgun. Delano's second chief-of-police is no hero, yet he is also disturbed by what he sees in the missing-persons bulletins. In 1969, when Delano's third chief takes over, the unsolved disappearances still haunt the police files.

One Second After

Already cited on the floor of Congress and discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a book all Americans should read, One Second After is the story of a war scenario that could become all too terrifyingly real. Based upon a real weapon - the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) - which may already be in the hands of our enemies, it is a truly realistic look at the awesome power of a weapon that can destroy the entire United States.

The Graveyard Book: Full-Cast Production

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack - who has already killed Bod's family…

You

Beck is everything Joe has ever wanted: she's gorgeous, tough, razor-smart, and sexy beyond his wildest dreams. Joe needs to have her, and he'll stop at nothing to do so. As he begins to insinuate himself into her life - her friendships, her email, her phone - she can’t resist her feelings for a guy who seems custom-made for her. So when her boyfriend, Benji, mysteriously disappears, Beck and Joe fall into a tumultuous affair. But there's more to Beck than her oh-so-perfect façade.

Swan Song

Facing down an unprecedented malevolent enemy, the government responds with a nuclear attack. America as it was is gone forever, and now every citizen - from the President of the United States to the homeless on the streets of New York City - will fight for survival. In a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, earth's last survivors have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil, that will decide the fate of humanity.

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

Why we think it’s a great listen: A performance so poignant, we gave Bronson Pinchot (yes, Balki from Perfect Strangers) our inaugural Narrator of the Year award.... In the monsoon season of 1968-69 at a fire support base called Matterhorn, located in the remote mountains of Vietnam, a young and ambitious Marine lieutenant wants to command a company to further his civilian political ambitions. But two people stand in his way.

The Prettiest One: A Thriller

When Caitlin Sommers finds herself alone in a deserted parking lot with blood on her clothes and no memory of the past few months, it seems like one of the nightmares that have tormented her for years...but it's all too real. Desperate to learn the truth about where she's been and what has happened to her but terrified of what she may find, Caitlin embarks on a search for answers.

The Cuckoo's Calling

After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: his sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

Timebound

When Kate Pierce-Keller’s grandmother gives her a strange blue medallion and speaks of time travel, sixteen-year-old Kate assumes the old woman is delusional. But it all becomes horrifyingly real when a murder in the past destroys the foundation of Kate’s present-day life. Suddenly, that medallion is the only thing protecting Kate from blinking out of existence. Kate learns that the 1893 killing is part of something much more sinister, and her genetic ability to time travel makes Kate the only one who can fix the future.

Before He Finds Her

Everyone in the quiet Jersey Shore town of Silver Bay knows the story: on a Sunday evening in September 1991, Ramsey Miller threw a blowout block party, then murdered his beautiful wife and three-year-old daughter. But everyone is wrong. The daughter got away. Now she is nearly eighteen and tired of living in secrecy. Under the name Melanie Denison, she has spent the last fifteen years in small-town West Virginia as part of the Witness Protection Program. She has never been allowed to travel, go to a school dance, or even have internet at home. Precautions must be taken at every turn, because Ramsey Miller was never caught and might still be looking for his daughter.

The Fireman: A Novel

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies - before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

Alas, Babylon

This true modern masterpiece is built around the two fateful words that make up the title and herald the end - “Alas, Babylon.” When a nuclear holocaust ravages the United States, a thousand years of civilization are stripped away overnight, and tens of millions of people are killed instantly. But for one small town in Florida, miraculously spared, the struggle is just beginning, as men and women of all backgrounds join together to confront the darkness....

The Stranger

The Stranger appears out of nowhere, perhaps in a bar or a parking lot or at the grocery store. His identity is unknown. His motives are unclear. His information is undeniable. Then he whispers a few words in your ear and disappears, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world.

The Never Hero: The Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs, Book 1

Reclusive college student Jonathan Tibbs wakes in a pool of blood, not a scratch on him. His life is about to undergo a massive shift. A violent and merciless otherworldly enemy unleashes slaughter in the streets, calling out in a language only he understands. And it is seeking its challenger. In order to defeat the threat, Jonathan must become a temporal weapon...while remaining completely anonymous. Unfortunately, harnessing off-world powers has its own special challenges...

Howl's Moving Castle

A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and ALA Notable and Best of the Year in Young Adult Fiction, Howl's Moving Castle is by acclaimed fantasy writer Diane Wynne Jones amd was transformed into an Academy Award nominated animated motion picture by Hayao Miyazaki. On a rare venture out from her step-mother's hat shop, Sophie attracts the attention of a witch, who casts a terrible spell transforming the young girl into an old crone.

The Quiet Game

When former prosecutor Penn Cage returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, he doesn't find the peace he desperately craves. He finds that his own father is being blackmailed by a corrupt ex-cop. And when Penn investigates, he uncovers a murderous secret - and the small town's violent past.

The Winds of War

Herman Wouk's sweeping epic of World War II stands as the crowning achievement of one of America's most celebrated storytellers. Like no other books about the war, Wouk's spellbinding narrative captures the tide of global events - and all the drama, romance, heroism, and tragedy of World War II - as it immerses us in the lives of a single American family drawn into the very center of the war's maelstrom.

Audible Editor Reviews

Editors Select, May 2013 - Christmasland is a place where every day is Christmas morning and every night is Christmas Eve. This might not sound like fertile ground for a horror novel, but rest assured; just as there's nothing funny about Pennywise the Dancing Clown in Stephen King's It, there's nothing merry about Christmasland in NOS4A2. Joe Hill tells the story of decrepit child thief Charlie Manx, who travels the country in his Rolls Royce Wraith taking mistreated kids to Christmasland, where they live happily forever playing games like "bite-the-smallest" and "scissors-for-the-drifter". The only girl who managed to escape his clutches and put Manx in prison for life finds that even Manx's death can't keep him from his quest to make sure every mistreated child is taken to Christmasland. As eerie as a Bing Crosby album played at half speed, NOS4A2 is a thoroughly creepy and compulsively readable supernatural thriller. Kate Mulgrew shines as narrator, turning in a spot-on performance as Victoria McQueen, a tough-as-nails if emotionally frail heroine. Michael, Audible Editor

Publisher's Summary

Audie Award Finalist, Solo Narration - Female, 2014

Joe Hill, the acclaimed, award-winning author of the New York Times best sellers Heart-Shaped Box and Horns, plunges you into the dark side of imagination with a thrilling novel of supernatural suspense that will have you flinching at shadows and checking the rearview mirror again and again....

NOS4A2

Don't slow down

Victoria McQueen has an uncanny knack for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. When she rides her bicycle over the rickety old covered bridge in the woods near her house, she always emerges in the places she needs to be. Vic doesn't tell anyone about her unusual ability, because she knows no one will believe her. She has trouble understanding it herself.

Charles Talent Manx has a gift of his own. He likes to take children for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the vanity plate NOS4A2. In the Wraith, he and his innocent guests can slip out of the everyday world and onto hidden roads that lead to an astonishing playground of amusements he calls Christmasland. Mile by mile, the journey across the highway of Charlie's twisted imagination transforms his precious passengers, leaving them as terrifying and unstoppable as their benefactor.

And then comes the day when Vic goes looking for trouble...and finds her way, inevitably, to Charlie.

That was a lifetime ago. Now, the only kid ever to escape Charlie's unmitigated evil is all grown up and desperate to forget.

But Charlie Manx hasn't stopped thinking about the exceptional Victoria McQueen. On the road again, he won't slow down until he's taken his revenge. He's after something very special - something Vic can never replace.

As a life-and-death battle of wills builds her magic pitted against his - Vic McQueen prepares to destroy Charlie once and for all...or die trying....

Joe Hill's acclaimed works of fiction, Horns, Heart-Shaped Box, and 20th Century Ghosts, have already earned him international acclaim. With NOS4A2, this outstanding novelist - "one of America's finest horror writers" (Time magazine); "a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction" (Washington Post) - crafts his finest work yet. Disturbing, mesmerizing, and full of twisting thrills, Hill's phantasmagoric, devilishly playful masterpiece is a terrifying high-octane ride.

What the Critics Say

"Quite simply the best horror writer of our generation, Joe Hill’s masterful storytelling is on full display in NOS4A2. It is by turns terrifying and hilarious, horrifying and full of heart, and relentlessly compelling." (Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of The Prophet)

"Fascinating and utterly engaging, this novel is sure to leave readers wanting more. One thing is for certain, however. After reading this book, readers will never hear Christmas carols in quite the same way again." (Library Journal, starred review)

"[A] new take on the fantasy-horror genre...Highly recommended." (The Sun Herald Sydney, Australia)

I'm a visual designer. I listen to audiobooks throughout my day while I work. So, to me, a "good" audio book is one that keeps my interest even while I am not focused on it 100%.Once I started this ride, I couldn't turn it off. I listeneded in the car, at the gym, and as I went to sleep. Stayed awake until 4am on the 3rd day- just to finish.

I have sampled ( and rejected) so many audiobooks that promise a "kick-a$$" heroine, but deliver a shrill and unconvincing performance by the narrator. Mulgrew was perfection! I believed every word as Vic, and her performance of Charlie Manx struck just the right creepy chords.

I'll look for more from Joe Hill. But I think my next purchase may be anything narrated by Mulgrew.

When you read this novel, it will become clear why my headline is written as it is.

NOS4A2 is a story you won't want to miss. Well written, with a fresh, compelling storyline. A chilling start, and then it slows a little, but that is just necessary for information gathering, and character building--which all comes together with dizzying speed. I literally could not stop listening - everytime I put the ipod down to do something else, I couldn't wait to get back to it.

At times I completely forgot I wasn't listening to a Stephen King novel, but I guess it is only normal that his son would have picked up some of his style over the years. Joe Hill is an excellent author, as shown by his many publications so far. This one is my favorite.

Charlie Manx is a really bad man of 100+ years old, who loves Christmas, and claims he has to "save" children from bad parents by kidnapping them and taking them to his Christmas Land to live. Unfortunately, most of the parents are killed or maimed in the process, unless they are saved to be used for "fun" games by the children in Christmas Land. One of the children who Manx kidnapped, escapes. Known as Vic (Victoria), she was a scrappy, tough kid who had a knack for "finding" things that were lost -in a way that even she didn't understand. Her gift becomes more clear to her as she grows into the strong and determined adult who fights the evil Manx to protect those she loves. It's hard to write a review without divulging too much information, but I haven't given anything away here, as this is all information you get quite quickly.

This is the first novel I've listened to narrated by Kate Mulgrew--and what a talent. She has a real grasp on what each character should sound like, and puts her heart and soul into it. I will definitely check out other works by her.

I feel lucky that so many King horror stories seem to primarily take place in my state of Colorado (Misery, The Shining, the Stand, etc) as does this one. I can picture where all the action takes place, as they are loosely based on actual locations or structures, which makes them deliciously creepy to read.

A special treat at the end of this novel is Joe Hill speaking about his writing, some favorite authors, and a little about growing up in the King household. Very interesting.

WOW! NOS4A2 puts Heart-Shaped Box to shame, no question. This is a phenomenal book made all the better by Kate Mulgrew's superb narration. We all know that a bad narrator can made an otherwise-great book unlistenable; believe me, no danger of that here! Mulgrew is pitch-perfect with every single character. Her interpretation of Manx in particular is skin-crawlingly good. I will certainly be purchasing any other projects to which she lends her vocal talents! Out of the 100+ audiobooks I've downloaded from Audible, I'd say I've had about a 50/50 success rate. Some have been sublime, others downright unlistenable. NOS4A2 definitely falls in the former category!

NOTE: This one starts off with a terrific bang then slows down for just a little bit to do some set-up. Don't be thrown off by the momentary lull---by the time you hit the two-hour-mark, things are revving up again and they never slow down for the rest of this incredible ride!

The wonderful characters and rich descriptions. And the "can't stop listening" level of suspense.

Any additional comments?

Very early on in this book I wondered "WOW, who the heck is this guy and why haven't I heard of him before? He could give Stephen King a solid run for his money" having no idea in the world that he was, in fact, a chip off the old King block until I looked him up online. As an author Joe Hill stands firmly on his own even though this acorn didn't fall far from the tree. Hill's style is in no way a lesser imitation of his fathers' work, although the writing is clearly influenced by it in all of the best possible ways. If you loved "It" or any of King's best, you really must read this one. Personally I can't wait to read more of his work.

Also: be sure to listen right through the credits where Hill sneaks in a creepy little plot epilogue, followed by an interesting author's commentary on audiobooks, the wonderful Kate Mulgrew, and his experience of growing up in a family of writers.

I enjoyed the opening sections of this work. The author did a good job setting up the plot and outlining the characters and their respective roles in the action. As the story lumbered on, however, it seemed as if Mr. Hill had no idea where he was taking this tale when he first put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) in Chapter 1. As Mr. Hill lost his compass heading, the story line unraveled under the weight of a poorly organized work of fiction. A good story has a beginning, a middle and an end; Mr. Hill's work was just endless middle.

The characters were the saving grace of this book, more due to the excellent performance of Ms.Kate Mulgrew than creative portrayals by Mr. Hill. I've not yet been inclined in my 10-year membership to listen to other works based on the performance of the reader alone. For Ms. Mulgrew, I plan to make an exception and will soon look to see what else she has done. She did a great job.

Joe Hill really writes an awful (in a good way) novel..this was ucky creepy and I'm still thinking about it a week and another good listen later. It was truly not a fun listen and really got to me but I still am glad I listened. Made to be listened to rather than read, Kate Mulgrew of Star Trek "Voyager" fame shows her narrating ability in Hills' iconic horror novel..she has a flexible voice that can do many registers from high to low and displays an excellent ability to put the creep into creepy. Don't fall asleep to this novel..it will bring on BAD dreams......garenteed!

This is the kind of plot that makes the horror genre honk its horn in excitement. While there are some reminiscent scenes similar to Hills more famous dad's iconic novel "Christine", Joe Hill doesn't stand on literary parents productivity with this example of his work.

This book may wreck Christmas for some of you..I'm glad I listened to it in the spring as I don't want to hear "Holly Jolly Christmas" for a long time.

I'm quite serious about listening to it while falling asleep. I did and my brain was full of the monstrosity of the Rolls "Wraith" trapping ME and taking me for a ride while I slept.

If you have the right 'equipment' you can travel imaginary roads and experience supernatural wonders...but you must pay the price.

This is a good horror story (strike that)...This is a REALLY GOOD horror story and Stephen King should be proud of his son who is most definitely a chip off the old block. At the start the listener/reader is enticed by the creepy title hinting at vampires, blood and gore but this is not precisely the case. The listener/reader is introduced to Charles Manx, an old man of +110 years, whose peculiarity is to be alive. After spending almost a decade in a coma and after being officially declared as dead, Charlie ‘wakes up’. This unnerving scene is the first of many. We learn that Charlie drives a 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith…that is also ‘alive’. He and his minion (Bing) go looking for kids that are ‘brutalized’, taking them to Christmasland…a place where all the kids are happy and never want to leave. We also meet Victoria ‘Vic’ McQueen (also the ‘Brat’) who is the strong, complicated and far from flawless heroine. She discovers she has a rather special power as she is able to transport herself to different physical locations by pedaling her bike (her Raleigh Tuff Burner) and riding through a covered bridge. She can find lost things but is ‘costs’ her. Sometimes the things she finds are tangible, like her mother’s bracelet a lost picture, etc. but sometimes she encounters things that are less tangible; such as her meeting with a stuttering librarian (Maggie) and Maggie’s special scrabble letters. It’s when Vic goes looking for trouble that her story gets entangled with that of the malevolent and uniquely nasty villain, Charlie.

This supernatural suspense story is fused with well-developed characters that are complex in their own ways and the plot is interesting and moves quickly. Whilst being edgy, dark, scary and at times uncomfortable, the novel is also a book about family and the contentious relationships that exist between parents/children and husbands/wives. There are numerous scenes and characters that are memorable but of course Vic and Charlie are particularly unforgettable. NOS4A2 kept me up at night because I just could not stop listening. I definitely recommend this to any horror or suspense loving fan and to all who are on the hunt for a truly spellbinding listen.

I know that I'm in the minority, but I did not enjoy the experience of listening to this at all. Most of the voices for the characters were fine, but the description of the main antagonist's voice did not match how Kate Mulgrew chose to act it out. I found the main protagonist unlikable for most of it, and the descriptions of most everything dragged on too long. At the 1/4 point, I was ready for it to be over. It could have been made into two books very easily. I don't normally stop a book or audiobook and walk away entirely, but the deciding factor were some of the over-the-top disturbing descriptions that were given. I'm no stranger to horror, but this was too much.

"You better watch out, you better not pout...Charlie Manx is coming 2 town." Don't be surprised if this coming Christmas, when the snowflakes start to fall, the colored lights brighten the night, and Christmas songs tinkle from every speaker everywhere, you find yourself reluctant to trim the tree, refusing to let your children sit on Santa's lap, acting horrified when the kids want to build a snowman, and definitely throwing your Christmas CD's through the air like clay pigeons. Halloween will become the new jolly holiday, jumping next to New Year's Eve, because Joe Hill obliterates everything warm and cozy about the holiday no-longer-to-be-mentioned, including the once delicious homey smell of gingerbread, and choirs of *angelic* children singing carols....it's giving me bad goose bumps just thinking about their innocent toothy-smiling faces.

I have always said that a good scary book is my favorite guilty pleasure, and what I think is one of the hardest kinds of book to find...Merry Christmas to me...I found one, (but almost ruined Christmas in the process)! Hill has a jolly time here, visions of psychologically damaged children grown-up, bearing the weight of their injustices, acting on the misdeeds hard-wired into their little heads. Victoria McQueen (Vic the Brat) we meet during her troubled childhood. On her beloved banana seated bike, she can escape her quarreling parents, or just get away to another world by crossing a magical bridge that she can imagine, or conjure. It takes her to her *inscape*, a place where she finds things that are lost, or where she can stay lost, but a toll is taken out of her, no free ride. She grows into a tattooed, bad-ass, motor cycle mama that's not so good at the mama part to her son, Bruce Wayne -- haunted through the years by her memories of a specific trip across that bridge where she met Charlie Manx -- the Grinch's mean and ugly older brother.

Charlie Manx is no Nosferatu, sucking the blood from his victims; he is more like part Transformer, part chi-vampire, part Mr. Burns as a giant gangly giggly mortician that drives a vintage Rolls Royce Wraith that is connected to him psychically--and he/the Wraith is powered by the goodness and joy of children. He is aided by a demonic, sadistic oaf of an elf, the gas-mask wearing (literally Mo-Fo'er) Mr. Bing Partridge, and his ever present canister of gingerbread-scented sevoflurane (that gas that puts you out on the operating table while you count backwards from 100...and get to 96). The very naughty team do away with the pesky parents, then whisk the cherubic children off to Christmasland, where there are no rules, everyday is Christmas, and no parent can tell them what to do. Christmasland is Charlie Manx's inscape--his off the map destination to keep his hoard of children and stay away from people that want to stop his murderous ways.

Bing is a character that will be remembered (and dismembered?). Belittled and badgered one time too many by his cruel parents, he puts them to sleep for good, and takes over his dad's collection of porn. He is oafish and slow, and fond of childish demented rhyming. Charlie Manx was nagged by a wife that felt he was never good enough, and claimed he was *sucking the life out of his daughters,* (now residents of Christmas land themselves...so what exactly happened to Mrs. Manx?..). There is lots of fun here, so much so that it is hard to look at this as just horror--can we say delicious horror? The puns, the metonymy, the tropes, the references to King's books (Salem's Lot, Christine, It, etc., the movie Psycho? The White Christmas song crooner? Batman? Maxwell's Silver Hammer?...) could make this a great ghoulish game of Bingo, or even better, a wild drinking game..."I found Pennywise!!" down the hatch...

Downside, I'd have to put Kate Mulgrew on the naughty list, her over exuberance did mellow, but jeez, it was painful in the beginning, and I think she herself mixed up the voice of whom was whom. Did an obsessively nagging wife turn Charlie into an energy-sucking fiend, did Santa miss him the year he wished for a puppy to dissect, or what is his black-back story, and how did he hook up with the Wraith? Some etiology or info would have been helpful to understanding his motivation. But then, I guess a monster's motivation is...he's a monster!

There's so much more I'd like to say (oh, the kiddies at Christmasland!) but I don't want to give away even one eye-popping detail. More like a 3.5 star, but like I always say, it's a hard genre to get a good book out of, and this was a lot of creepy scary fun. It could have been whittled down a couple of hours-but the time didn't bother me because I didn't want my trip to Christmasland to be over. Only my second book by the genetically gifted Joe Hill, I had read Heart Shaped Box, but I found this one the better package under the tree! If you are a fan of the genre, get out a tally sheet, or line up a couple of six packs, and definitely download, but remember, when your family is crying because you won't make a snowman with them -- I warned you...NOS4A2 is COMN4U.

This book was completely out of my genre ( have listened to a few Stephen king that i didn't mind) and I don't think this was a very good experience for me. I do not have sensitive skin and I usually don't get offended but the language mixed in with this story was to the point of disgusting me. I ound it borderline vulgar and I was starting the constant eye roll and hearing the voice in my head go..'seriously? How many times have we said that body part now? People don't really talk like that do they? ' It was just..gross. I thought it took an extremely long time to get thru this book and I have istened to some 30 hour long ones and it didn't hold my attention just made me want to get thru it. I did not find the narrator great or teriffic but nerve grating with her raspy overacting. Was not a pleasant experience for me.